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24 Jul

July 24, 2008 |

2008EnglishCamp.jpgI’m in China participating in the English camp for Chinese teachers. We had the teachers participate in a values survey.

  • The number one value among our teachers: “Respect and honor your parents and grandparents.”
  • Least important: “Keeping oneself disinterested and pure.”

This requires some explanation. What they mean by this is that they want to remain connected with people, in touch, not aloof. “Pure” in this context is seen as negative. It implies that you are unwilling to be “dirtied” by others. I like that.

23 Jul

July 23, 2008 |

Your church needs a domain name.

  • The potential domain names for your church decline every day. Unless your church has an unusual name, or you add “ub” to the end, you’ll probably have trouble finding an appropriate name. So get on it now.
  • When my church, Anchor Community Church, started a website in 2002, we had a terrible time finding a good domain name. Most any name containing “Anchor” was already taken, and that was six years ago. We finally settled on “Anchorpeople.org.”
  • Domain names are bargain-priced real estate on the internet. Prices vary, but $20 a year might do it.
  • Once a name is gone, it’s gone. Unless somebody forgets to renew it somewhere down the road (in which case, somebody else will probably grab it first).

You don’t need a website to have a domain name.

  • Even if you have no immediate plans to create a website, I recommend obtaining a domain name. Set it on the shelf until you need it.
  • The national office owns 37 domain names, most of which aren’t being used. We’re just saving them for possible future needs, and don’t want anyone else to own them (like unitedbrethren.com, ubchurches.us, ubchildren.org, and ubusa.org).
  • If you have an internet service provider, you can possibly use your domain name for email even if you don’t have a website.

To search for available names, go to the homepage of Network Solutions or GoDaddy.

What advice or experience can you share?

22 Jul

July 22, 2008 |

Craig Mickey is the new Assimilation Pastor at Emmanuel Community Church (Fort Wayne, Ind.). For the past seven years, he has been youth pastor at Prince Street UB church (Shippensburg, Pa.). Prior to that, he was an intern at Emmanuel.

22 Jul

July 22, 2008 |

Dave Datema, UB ordained minister and endorsed missionary, talks on his blog, Freakin’ Missionary, about how God works slowly, and of our attempts to speed him up. He started with a post called “God’s Slow Ways,” which was followed by “Speeding God Up.” The latter says:

I find it hard to know when to wait on God to work His purposes and when to launch out in faith.  Great perils await us when we go to either extreme. Some people wait and do nothing, expecting God to do everything. Others are always doing things, sure that “God helps those who help themselves.” So how do we know which to do?

22 Jul

July 22, 2008 |

Iglesia Reformada Emanuel is located in Jamaica Plain, Mass., a very urban suburb of greater Boston. It’s not a good neighborhood. They told me you don’t want to be out at night. When they hold late-night services, they ask the police to come stand guard during the service.

The congregation has a tradition of holding their Easter service at 3 a.m. This past Easter, while police officers stood around the periphery of where they were meeting, a young man in the house next door to the church was shot in the neck and killed. The officers saw the assailant toss the gun away after the shooting and while running through the back yard to escape. They caught him.

21 Jul

July 21, 2008 |

We just learned about a two-day conference called “The Sticks” which may appeal to you. It’s designed for churches in rural and smalltown settings. They’ve got some excellent speakers lined up, and seem to have a great spirit and purpose.

Date: November 11-12
Location: Loudonville, Ohio (about halfway between Columbus and Cleveland (near Mansfield).

Their promo says:

Do you live out in the sticks (small cities and towns of 50K or less).
Do you want to make a big impact?
Tired of small towns being left out of the conversation?
Have you bought into the lies…”We can’t do that” or “We don’t have the funds to pull that off”?

CHECK OUT THE STICKS!
The sticks is a gathering to inspire and equip pastors in small to medium towns to make a big impact for the Kingdom!

They’re only taking 400 people (at $159 per registration), so if you’re interested, you might jump on it quick.

20 Jul

July 20, 2008 |

Scott Hardaway’s June 29 blog post, “What I Don’t Believe,” presented 26 things that he doesn’t believe. It’s an interesting list. Here are a few of them. (Scott is pastor of Pathway Community Church in Jackson, Mich.)

  • I don’t believe in the avoidance of pain or discomfort as a goal of life.
  • I don’t believe in the American Dream.
  • I don’t believe that inauthentic relationships are worth any time or effort.
  • I don’t believe that most people who claim the name of Christ actually have any kind of true relationship with him (in America, at least).
  • I don’t believe in cutting short the mission of the church to please the already-convinced.
  • I don’t believe in worrying about high or low self-esteem, since Jesus calls us to die to ourselves.
  • I don’t believe any church will ever be perfect.
  • I don’t believe any concept of joining people together will ever be greater than the church.
  • I don’t believe that the pursuit of power, pleasure, possessions, popularity, or prestige will ever lead to fulfillment.
  • I don’t believe an American political structure will ever work as an effective model for a church structure.

Does that peak your interest? You can read the rest of the list on Scott’s blog, and he invites you to add your own items to the list.

19 Jul

July 19, 2008 |

Global Ministries is sponsoring four events to train mission team leaders. With more and more mission teams going out, we need more people who understand how to make these teams successful. These seminars, fun and interactive, will be led by Jeff Bleijerveld and Donna Hollopeter in four regional locations.

The cost is $60 per person.

You can register online, and view information about each event–directions, hotels–by using the links below.

August 22-23 Salem UB Church, Chambersburg, Pa.
September 12-13 Emmanuel Community Church
Fort Wayne, Ind.
October 3-4 (Details still being confirmed)
Charlotte, Mich.
November 14-15 Lancaster UB ChurchLancaster, Ohio

18 Jul

July 18, 2008 |

sleepingonfloor_500.jpg

Every year for the past five years, Global Ministries has sponsored a medical team in Honduras. I’ve been part of each team as one of the support workers. This year’s trip, June 20-28, was phenomenal. Everybody gelled. We conducted clinics in five locations, and saw a total of 1945 patients.

The last clinic was in the town of La Flecha. We planned to stay overnight there, stay in San Pedro Sula the next night, and fly out on Saturday. But then we heard about a national strike scheduled to hit the country Friday morning.

Transportation workers–taxis, buses, truck drivers–were protesting the high cost of gasoline and government taxes on gas. The strike would start at 6 a.m. on Friday. This raised doubts about our ability to even get to San Pedro Sula. So we decided to try to beat the strike.

We drove from La Flecha for two-and-a-half hours, and arrived at the hotel in San Pedro Sula just after midnight. We had rooms reserved there for Friday night, but they had nothing available for Thursday night. Although there were no rooms in the inn, they did make room for us. They said we could sleep on the floor of the exercise room and lobby.

So that’s how we spent the rest of the night. I slept on a sofa in the lobby, using a sofa pillow. As people arrived to check in, I was right there.

The next night we slept in the rooms previously reserved. And Saturday morning, we flew home.